


I'll Be The King (You Be The Filth I Wash Away)

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon - Manga, Chess, Chess Metaphors, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 08:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18495229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: Stein has always played a game with Death. The Battle on the Moon is no exception.





	I'll Be The King (You Be The Filth I Wash Away)

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I'll write something less serious one of these days haha

Outside, the world loomed as formidable as it always had been: all ink and madness. Sitting inside of Death’s Room did little to stop the wavelength from assaulting his senses, but Stein held his fist white-knuckle tight, nails digging into old scars to keep him alert.

After all, he was here for a favor.

In front of him, Death contemplated the chess set before him, eyeing a rook quietly. Frankly, the entire game had been a tense pretense to the actual reason they had gathered. Finally, Death broke the silence.

“Interesting strategy indeed, _General_ ,” he said, and Stein almost bristled. However he found the space for composure, he didn’t know.

He felt as though he knew nothing, nowadays.

“Well,” he stalled, watching as Death moved a pawn two spaces, “what is a battle without every outcome considered?”

A clean bluff. Easy. Simple. And, it was true: usually, Stein was a reckless player. Whatever pieces may fall, so long as victory came, were of little consequence. It was the same in reality. No, it wasn’t that he cared so deeply all of a sudden for lives lost, as always, they were collateral damage he could wash his hands of relatively easily. Except-

“I do hope this isn’t what you are considering for the upcoming battle,” Death replied, cheerfully. “The outcome would be. . .less than ideal.”

Stein moved his knight to the center of the board, now able to utilize it as an octopus with eight squares of reach. Deadly. Sharp.

“We will see,” Stein said, his spine slouched, as though this were something he were uninterested in.

“Shall we?”

Another pawn, near in harms’ way. Bait.

This was why they were a good match, Death and Stein: as unconcerned with consequence as could be.

“The game is nearing a conclusion,” he responded easily. And it was true. For the most part, the fodder had been cleared away. Stein was left with a scant number of pawns, a singular knight, one rook, and a handful of other pieces. Death wasn’t too far behind, holding a few extras.

“Ah, but you have yet to utilize your queen,” Death said, and Stein’s blood froze, looking down at the chess set and imagining it, not black and white and hand carved, but dusty, and full of blood.

“No,” he said, woodenly, tempted to reach out and feel the contours of his chief piece, “I felt it was. . .unnecessary.”

“Did you, now?” Death asked, and this time, the cheer was saccharine.

Ah, so, he had been found out.

“A game can be won with only the threat of utilization,” Stein bluffed, capturing a pawn.

“Was that the argument you concocted on your way here?”

Stein looked at Death evenly. They had never been friends. Stein had few, if not none. Even the least rigid terms of acquaintances was a stretch few could make, but Stein had always obeyed Death, as surely as he obeyed gravity. The leash of the DWMA had, on occasion, been loosened, and he had always trotted back. Desperate, perhaps, for the routine, the comfort, the false morality it imposed. Or, more accurately, he enjoyed the status, the freedom of experimentation, the disregard of simplicity.

“You placed me in charge of the expedition,” Stein said, instead of answering the more direct question. “I made decisions.”

“Decisions?” Death parroted. It wasn’t mocking. Not truly. But the knife of it all dug within Stein’s gut. The madness drenched him, left him feeling vulnerable and unstable. “How interesting you feel entitled to make them.”

“Pending your approval,” Stein tacked on. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Death said, distinctly like one would speak to a child. “And here I was under the impression this was regarding Mjolnir and your progeny.”

Stein didn’t react. At least, he tried not to. For all his imposing stature and mythology, he was, as always, as ever, as disappointedly: a man. Trite, in Death’s eyes. Expendable. Single-minded.

“I see no reason to take her,” he brushed off, quietly moving his rook across the board. “The pregnancy could have unforeseen consequences on her transformative qualities. The mission does not need a wildcard. Check.”

“Could,” Death said, moving his King.

“Hm?” He moved his rook to match the shift. “Check.”

Death laughed. “You’ve never been one to _chase_ , Stein.” Nonetheless, he moved his King once more, hiding behind a pawn.

Stein cracked his neck. “Every outcome,” he reminded, now, moving his final bishop.

“Yes, yes. You mentioned before. But, of course, you’re not speaking from a point of rationality.”

“A fetus-“

“No, no,” Death said, now, imposing. Now, every inch his namesake. “Don’t _hide._ There are no pretenses, here.”

Stein’s teeth set against one another, gritting slightly. “A baby-“

“ _Your_ baby.”

“My. . .baby does not alter my rationality.”

“No? What was it that you wrote in a previous report? ‘Fatherhood has made the Death Scythe soft and stupid’?”

“I’m not Spirit." 

“You certainly snuck around like he did. Broke the rules. You have such a knack for doing so. Though, I must admit, I never imagined you’d break this particular one. Fraternizing is _very_ serious, Stein. But, of course, I told Spirit the same and it did little, as we can clearly see in Maka’s existence.”

“You seem fond of comparisons. Kamiko was pulled from combat once her pregnancy was discovered,” Stein responded.

Death waved one large hand. “Kami was a meister.”

Ah, there it was. The crux. The unfairness of it all. Oh, the protests had been covered up many a time. Parents rallying for atonement and reparations regarding dead Weapon children. Meisters refusing to so much as touch their Weapon partners outside of battle.

Even him. Cutting Spirit. Looking for answers. Passing time. Mere boredom. His words came, then as a ghost. Lazy. Unperturbed. ‘ _He’s only a Weapon, Death. An object in a humanoid shape. Why shouldn’t I have experimented?’_

Now, he thinks of Marie’s warm skin. Her gentle smile. Her kind hands upon his shoulders, beckoning him to rest. Marie, unyielding. Marie, pregnant, standing in the doorway with the news. Marie, with her joyful laugh when he placed a palm upon her stomach, soon to curve.

Marie, unwilling to budge when he all but pleaded her to reconsider her desperation to go to the moon. ‘ _You promised me, Franken! You promised!’_

Marie, god, how he’d tried to appease her. Assured he’d bring her Justin so she could smite him herself. Assured he’d bring a head, wring his neck. Assured he’d come back hell or high water. Marie who refused. Who insisted. Marie who loved so, so deeply. Marie who gave. Gave and gave. And received so little. Asked so little. Marie and her kisses, her heat, her fingers stroking his cheek. ‘ _I’m going.’_

“Marie-“ Stein began, but the name choked in his throat.

“Is your weakness,” Death said, moving one rook behind his queen. “Oh, make no mistake, I don’t particularly _care_ that you. . .what’s a word you would use? Fornicated? Had a triste? Reproduced? Perhaps it’s more accurate to simply call it what it is, eh? That you fell in love with her.” Stein kept his face carefully composed, letting nothing loose. Saying nothing. He could almost imagine Death’s grin, if he even had a face behind that mask. “But, you forget, Stein. She is _my_ weapon. Death’s Scythe. Not yours.”

“You claimed I was in charge of this." 

“You are as in charge as a general in a crusade,” Death confirmed.

“And how many have you informed as to the pointlessness of this crusade?”

“Pointless? Why, the world is engulfed in Madness. It is a matter of good vs. evil.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Stein said, sloppy and uncaring in his strategy, moving pieces on the board without regard, now.

Death laughed, once more: genuinely delighted. “Fine, fine. But no one cares for the details of it all. Miss Mjolnir, least of all.”

“Marie-“ He began, knowing her name as easily as prayer, cut off, anyway. A half bitten off hymn.

“-Has already insisted she come. Deeply moral, that one. Yet, so incessant over a grudge against a sixteen year old. But surely, that must only make her more attractive to you. That bloodlust.”

“I won’t let her,” Stein said, staring Death in the eye, ignoring the ugliness revealed as easily as pulling flesh away for an autopsy.

“Oh? Under what rights?”

“Rights as a Meister.”

Death was quiet for a moment, moving another rook before his queen. “Surely, you know you couldn’t stop her.”

“But you can.”

The silence hung for a moment, the words swinging as though a man in a noose. Death yawned.

“You know,” he began, “I knew when you were a boy that you were special. So pragmatic. Unfettered by the gray nature of morality. Uninterested in attachments. I admit, it’s made you lose your rationality.”

“Oh?” Stein managed to grit out.

“You are under a false impression,” Death continued, finally moving his knight out of the way. “Check. Or, I should say: Checkmate in two.”

Stein stared at the board, analyzed the situation. How had he let it get so dire? A direct line, two rooks followed by a queen, right to his King. And the only way to prevent the inevitable: a sacrifice. The queen before the king. Inevitable defeat. A simple delay.

Stein looked back at Death, his throat a stone.

“What impression is that, then?” he asked, not yet making his final move in the endgame.

“Marie was never the queen,” Death claimed.

“What was she, then?” Stein managed ask.

“Why?” Death said, feigning surprise. “Merely a rook.”

Stein looked at the board once more. How easily Death had placed the piece in harm’s way. How simple. A straight line, as though an incision. This, too, asked of him.

Ah, but he never did play by many rules.

And, so, Stein gently grasped his king, looking for a single, fleeting moment, to contemplate an escape, and knocked it down onto its’ side, instead.  
  
And Death laughed, and laughed, and laughed.


End file.
